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mark12_30 · 06-22-2002, 06:38 AM

After pondering this for a bit, I think the essence of my answer is this:

More than anything, Tolkien's books made me realise that spirituality, transcendance, and holiness were beautiful, attractive, desireable things, not dead, stuffy, musty, buried-in-an-old-church-basement kinds of things. Tolkien made holiness, spirituality, and transcendance-- and therefore, right moral behavior--- DESIREABLE. Before they had mostly been shouldas and oughtas.

It's like putting somebody in a classroom and lecturing them for six months on how great Ice Cream tastes, complete with chemical analysis, physical digestive analysis, psychological analysis, and numerous reviews and writeups on various Ice Creams.

Or you can just hand somebody the spoon and the box of Ice Cream and say, taste it.

Tolken handed me, actually, a spoon and a whole banquet of different flavors. I saw-- tasted!-- holiness and transcendance and Hearing-the-call-to-what-is-higher in many places: in the elves, in Aragorn, in Faramir, in the hobbits espcially Frodo and Sam, and even in Gimli-- isn't that "Glittering Caves" discourse of his just stunning? Like Legolas, I reply, "You move me, Gimli; I have not heard you speak like this before." The call to What is Higher just keeps surfacing again and again in all of TOlkien's work. Even Bilbo's Arkenstone Gambit hints at transcendance-- albeit in a rather burglarish sort of way. I guess transcendance is a process by which one continually climbs higher and one must start wherever one is, at the moment.

There's even a sort of transcendace in Shadowfax-- okay, I realise theologically, this is stretching it a bit-- but look at him. He is the most magnificent of all the Mearas and he gives himself wholeheartedly to serve his master. He is the greatest, but he becomes a slave; and in doing so, he becomes far greater in the end than he was.

Even Gollum almost-- almost-- transcended his level of existance. He came so close in the pass. Poor Sam.

*end ramble*

06-22-2002, 06:38 AM	#8
mark12_30 Stormdancer of Doom Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars Posts: 4,349	After pondering this for a bit, I think the essence of my answer is this: More than anything, Tolkien's books made me realise that spirituality, transcendance, and holiness were beautiful, attractive, desireable things, not dead, stuffy, musty, buried-in-an-old-church-basement kinds of things. Tolkien made holiness, spirituality, and transcendance-- and therefore, right moral behavior--- DESIREABLE. Before they had mostly been shouldas and oughtas. It's like putting somebody in a classroom and lecturing them for six months on how great Ice Cream tastes, complete with chemical analysis, physical digestive analysis, psychological analysis, and numerous reviews and writeups on various Ice Creams. Or you can just hand somebody the spoon and the box of Ice Cream and say, taste it. Tolken handed me, actually, a spoon and a whole banquet of different flavors. I saw-- tasted!-- holiness and transcendance and Hearing-the-call-to-what-is-higher in many places: in the elves, in Aragorn, in Faramir, in the hobbits espcially Frodo and Sam, and even in Gimli-- isn't that "Glittering Caves" discourse of his just stunning? Like Legolas, I reply, "You move me, Gimli; I have not heard you speak like this before." The call to What is Higher just keeps surfacing again and again in all of TOlkien's work. Even Bilbo's Arkenstone Gambit hints at transcendance-- albeit in a rather burglarish sort of way. I guess transcendance is a process by which one continually climbs higher and one must start wherever one is, at the moment. There's even a sort of transcendace in Shadowfax-- okay, I realise theologically, this is stretching it a bit-- but look at him. He is the most magnificent of all the Mearas and he gives himself wholeheartedly to serve his master. He is the greatest, but he becomes a slave; and in doing so, he becomes far greater in the end than he was. Even Gollum almost-- almost-- transcended his level of existance. He came so close in the pass. Poor Sam. end ramble __________________ ...down to the water to see the elves dance and sing upon the midsummer's eve.